“I s’pose you mean right, Jarsey, but you’re awful simple. Yer’s as what hopes you’ll find the other chap right side up and squar with his ha’r on, but I don’t ’spect your ha’r ’ll be yer’s to-night. Howsumever you’re bound to stay, I see, so yer’s good luck. I’d like to stay with you, but I ain’t backward to own Bill Biddon knocks under this time.”
He reached his hard, horny hand, and I took it.
“Good-by, Bill, I hope we shall meet again. We have not been long acquainted, but I trust long enough to be friends.”
“And you’ll remember as how ole Bill Biddon didn’t mean what he said just now.”
“Certainly, certainly, I know you did not.”
“Wal, good-by it is, then.”
A half-hour after and I was alone in the great wilderness of the Northwest.
After parting with Biddon, I remained stationary a long time, meditating upon the strange resolve that I had acted upon. If looked at with the common-sense view that the honest trapper gave it, I was sensible it was nothing less than a piece of recklessness upon my part, which only could be excused by the motives that actuated me. I felt some regret certainly at parting with Biddon, for that honest, manly heart which throbbed within his massive breast had drawn me toward him, and I knew he had come to regard me in a far different light than he did at first. However, I was hopeful, and could not persuade myself that I was never to see him again.
Toward night the sky gave evidence of an approaching storm. A strong wind arose, and a melancholy, desolate moaning, like the precursor of winter, could be heard at intervals in the forest. Darkness came on earlier than usual, and, as I passed into the trapper’s home, the storm burst upon me. No one who has not witnessed a storm in the wilderness, can appreciate its awful grandeur. As I cowered within the heart of the old forest king, its power was subdued to my ears; but enough reached them to give me an idea of the terrific spectacle without. The huge sides of the tree surrounding me rumbled and groaned as though it were yielding to the hurricane; the wind blew with such fury that at times it sounded as though wailing screams were rending the air above me; and the sharp splintering of the trees riven by the lightning, rivaled the crash of the thunderbolt itself.
As the morning approached, the storm gradually died away, and as I stepped forth the sun was shining in unclouded splendor.